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Chapter 4: A Different Wavelength

Osho,On one hand the world is preparing for a global suicide; it looks like there is not much time left for our growth. On the other hand, what I heard from you is that growth is only possible when we relax, sit silently, and wait. This is a paradox. Beloved Osho, please can you speak about how to come out of situations where one part of me is restless and wants to do something? - yet deep down I feel that this leads me nowhere.

Puja Kavina, it is not a paradox, it only appears so. The world is certainly preparing for a global suicide; about that there are not two opinions - it is becoming every day more and more certain. Naturally you think you have to do something to prevent it. It is beyond your doing; whatever you do will bring it closer.

What can you do? The power is not in your hands; the power is in hands which are absolutely stubborn, and they don’t care a bit what happens to humanity. Their ego is their supreme value, the only value. Even though it means their own destruction, they will take the risk; they will destroy whoever they think is their enemy.

In the beginning, when this kind of war material was in the hands of two countries, the Soviet Union and America, there was some possibility that they may come to some negotiation. Now with the power of nuclear weapons in five countries, the possibility of negotiation has become more difficult, more complicated. And by the end of this century, the power will be in twenty-five countries’ hands. Then the question of negotiation does not arise.

My suggestion is: time is certainly very short, but it is enough to become enlightened, and it is enough to spread an enlightened atmosphere around the world. That is the only possibility.

If we can make the people of the world.not the politicians, leave them aside; they have the power but without the consent of the people of the world, their power is not of much use. If armies simply say, “No, we are not going to use nuclear weapons,” if the scientists simply say, “No, we are not going to produce any more nuclear weapons,” if the whole intelligentsia of the world unanimously creates a great uproar: “It is not a question of war; wars we have seen in thousands - they have been destructive, but they have not destroyed all life. This is not war, this is simple suicide!”

But these people: the scientists, the armies, the intelligentsia, the poets, the musicians, the mystics, the painters, the actors - the people who have a certain impact on the masses, although they don’t have any power except their individuality and their creativity - if they join hands together, this global suicide can be avoided. Not only suicide can be avoided, but with the same energy that was going to destroy all life, the planet can be turned into a paradise.

Energy is neutral - it can destroy, it can create. Nobody has thought: What can be the creative use of atomic energy? What can be the creative use of nuclear weapons? If the destructive power is so great, the power for creation will be equally great. Hence, I say not only can global suicide be avoided, but we can bring into existence a new dawn, a new man, a new humanity.